correct (although some philologists have denied this) (1). As for your claim that they say this (2) because a body is composed of individual parts, and that everything which can be pointed to is composite and is therefore called a body, this is a false allegation about them for several reasons:
First: It is known (3), through reliable transmission from them and through extant usage in their speech, that they do not call everything which can be pointed to a body, nor do they call rarefied air a body (4). Rather, they use the term “body” as they use the term “bodily frame.” This is how authorities on their language, such as al-Asma‘ī, Abū Zayd al-Ansārī, and others, transmitted their usage, just as (5) al-Jawharī transmitted it in his al-Sihāh, as did others besides al-Jawharī (6). Thus, in their usage, the term “body” connotes thickness and density, not merely being something that can be pointed to.
Second: They did not mean by this that it was composed of indivisible atoms (7), or of matter and form. Indeed, this never even occurred to them; they meant only density and thickness. As for whether density and thickness result from a multiplicity of indivisible atoms (8), or from the thing’s being intrinsically thick and dense—just as a thing may be hot or cold even though its heat and coldness (9) do not result from its being composed of